by Harley James
“Nooooo!” The scream ripped from her throat. In her head, she was clawing at the air, but her arms remained motionless at her side.
“Bring him back! He can’t survive all that he’s endured just to be swept into the Elysian Fields! Please. I’ll give you anything, just bring him back!” she sobbed to the warrior-god.
Anything? The deep voice rumbled inside her head. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms and down her legs. Only gods can speak in your head like this.
And the gods liked deals.
They never did anything for man without a price.
She swallowed. “Tell me your name and what sacrifice you require.”
The god’s deep blue gaze was like the river under moonlight. Dark, sparkling, mysterious.
You are a child, came the voice in her head once more.
“Boundaries of time mean nothing to the soul.”
Murky gray clouds scrambled over the ragged peaks of Mount Taygetos, cloaking the skies. Sophia’s throat ached with the need to cry. She would fail Alexios if she couldn’t bargain with this god. “Please. I was with him during—”
I know, Sophia, daughter of Tychos. And I foresee that you ever shall be. For now, though…somnus.
Birds.
Sophia blinked in the hazy, pre-dawn gloom of her room, trying to orient herself. Dozens of birds added their vexingly merry song to the incessant pounding at her bedroom door.
“Sophie, I have food. Open up!”
She groaned and covered her head with her pillow. “Go away, Niketas! It’s not even dawn yet!” But of course, he couldn’t hear her muffled irritation and barged right in—the rotting, cheerful scoundrel.
Her bed mattress sagged where her brother plopped down, set a tray on the table beside her bed, and promptly yanked the pillow from her face, ripping out strands of her long dark hair in the process. “Ow! I hate you and your morning pep,” she muttered.
Niketas raised his eyebrows. “You little brat. How thankless after I got you home unseen by anyone.”
Sophia’s gut wrenched as she shot up and scrambled to the edge of the bed, getting stuck in the linens. She kicked and wailed as she tried to free herself.
How had she forgotten?
How had she even gotten here?
One minute she was talking to the warrior-god—in my head!—thinking she was going to die, and the next minute…
“What of Alexios? Tell me now!”
Her chest rose and fell with deep gasping breaths like she’d run all the way to the Laconian Gulf. Which was absurd because she couldn’t even make it to the drill fields without walking part of the way.
Niketas frowned and put the back of his hand to her forehead. “Are you ill?”
Seven hells, yes. A god knows I’m alive.
Probably wouldn’t be for long, though. Unless she’d imagined the whole thing.
Huh.
She batted her brother’s hand away. “I’m not ill! He lives?”
Niketas screwed up his face. “Alexios? Yes. He’s recovering like all the other ephebes who endured the contest. I suppose you’re sweet on him now like all the other maidens. That’s adorable, Sophie.”
She glared and made a rude noise, rubbing her chest, trying to ease the wild beating of her heart. “Don’t be ridiculous. Boys are stupid.”
He lives.
Everything was right in the world again. Of course, she’d imagined the whole thing with the warrior-god. If it had been true, Niketas would’ve barged in here, crazed about that, not going off about all the ways she was going to pay him back for saving her butt.
Must’ve been temporary heat madness.
She glanced at the tray sitting on the bedside table. It was laden with all her favorite foods to break her fast. She looked sheepishly at her brother. “Thank you, Niketas. I am properly contrite. What else can I do for you today since you saved me from mother’s wrath and papa’s drowning concern?”
He smiled, and as her brother continued to list all the ways she’d need to atone, her gaze fell on a small round object sitting on her windowsill.
It wasn’t there yesterday.
Four prayers to Athena.
Four interminable prayers to Athena was how long she had to wait until Niketas finally left the room.
She jumped out of bed and ran to the window, blood pumping through her body. The cool morning breeze lifted the edge of her sleep shift to slithered around her thighs, but it had no effect on the object on the windowsill.
A tiny circle of entwined, thorny vines.
If it wasn’t so sharp, she could wear it as a ring about her middle finger. Or place it as a crown upon one of the gossiping birds in the olive trees outside in the courtyard.
It was finely crafted. Dangerous and lovely.
She reached to touch it and pricked her finger. She yelped, a zing of energy shooting up her spine, making her scalp tingle and the back of her neck burn like a brand. She raised her finger to suck at the welling blood, hearing the words she’d spoken to the warrior-god coming back to her in his deep tones.
Boundaries of time mean nothing to the soul.
Her heart lurched into her throat. He was real? When she looked back down upon the windowsill, drops of her bright red blood contrasted startlingly on the white stucco.
But the circle of thorns was gone.
Chapter 3
6 years later - 521 BC
Alexios watched her coming down the mountain in that peculiar moment when day gives way to dusk. He should have looked away—the gulf between them was too great—but with her, he never could.
Before her, he’d never believed in the existence of souls. But six years ago, when he was at his breaking point, something had passed between them on a realm that couldn’t be seen or touched. And since then—since he’d learned she was King’s Tychos’s daughter instead of a slave girl—each time their gazes met across the marketplace or from her protected perch next to the king’s guard, he felt…
Unmasked.
She was like his shadow, mysterious, yet familiar. He would feel a presence, and when he’d turn around, there she was. Close enough to see her crystal blue eyes, but not near enough to caress those soft cheeks that darkened a dusky pink when he caught her staring.
Alexios rubbed his chest and rolled his shoulders, trying to dispel the restless energy that always bloomed whenever she was near.
Now her lush, dark hair was pulled up and away from her face, her piercing blue eyes squinting in concentration as she carefully picked her steps in the gloaming because…
The baby.
She’d wrapped the wailing newborn in a fox fur and was squeezing it tightly to her chest. The infant had been left to die of exposure for some real or imagined imperfection by Sparta’s most elite, controlling asses.
Sophia. Bold, emotional, and dangerously naïve.
“I don’t understand her.” Felix, Alexios’s second in command in their platoon, curled his lip disdainfully, eyeing the princess as the two soldiers made their way from the drill fields to the communal baths after several blistering training hours in the unseasonably hot spring weather.
“Why does she care what happens to those squalling wretches? She should be enjoying her station at the top of the food chain, or better yet, practicing her balance so she doesn’t humiliate her bridegroom. Did you hear she’s been promised to Lysandros? As lovely as she is, she’s shockingly ungraceful. He’ll probably keep her on her back as often as possible so he isn’t shamed by her lack of coordination.”
Alexios froze on the dusty trail, a blast of heat surging into his chest. Felix only managed a single bark of laughter before Alexios reached out to wrap his fingers around Felix’s muscular neck.
“Many words is poverty,” he gritted out, struggling to master his rage, his own shock at his reaction. Felix’s words dishonored the princess, but she was not his to defend. Therefore, his response was undisciplined and weak.
He despised weakness. In himself most of all.
He shoved Felix to the ground and continued toward the baths. He had more important concerns than Sophia’s intrigues. Because his father had claimed him as his heir, he’d angered the entire Spartan ruling Assembly while simultaneously creating distrust within the slave population with whom he’d been raised.
To try to fix the controversy, the king had sent him to the state-run military school for boys. He’d been seven years old. In the seventeen years since then, Alexios had straddled two cultures, but belonged to neither.
Only one person seemed as isolated amid the sea of people who surrounded her.
Sophia. Daughter of Sparta’s second, co-ruling king, from the other royal dynastic line.
Alexios’s gaze sought her tall, shapely form, but she must have already descended into the olive trees at the base of Mount Taygetos, so he could no longer chart her unsteady progress.
Damn her compelling eyes and his impossible fascination with her.
A dark shadow melted into the tall bushes that lined the north side of the path. Alexios frowned, blinking to refocus his eyes. He inwardly groaned when his mother appeared on the path in front of him, her teeth bright in the growing moonlight.
“Has she made it down yet?” Kassandra asked, all the exhilaration of her baby-saving passion suffusing her voice.
She was talking about Sophia, of course.
Alexios brought his stare back toward the shrubbery for several moments, alert to any shifting of the foliage. Nothing. Probably his eyes playing tricks on him—a sign of his fatigue. Time for a soak, a large meal, and sleep.
Kassandra reached up and snapped her fingers in his face, bringing his gaze to her amused one. “Well, hello there, warrior. Have you seen the princess?”
“I am bloody and weary, mother. Do not involve me in your crusade to save Spartan throwaways.”
Kassandra jabbed a finger into the wall of his chest. “Shame on you. I raised you better than that. Spartan throwaways! Do you know how many babies have been adopted into slave families? Those families are now complete—those babies are as loved and cherished as I love and cherish you. Well, almost as much.” Alexios’s lips softened into a slight curve. “And furthermore,” she continued, “if you don’t repeal this horrific infanticide practice when you become the next king, I will disown you.”
Alexios placed his hands on her shoulders. “Stand down, lady. Your word shall become law.” It was an easy promise to make because he’d never believed he would actually replace King Davos.
The king’s wife was a brilliant schemer, determined to upend patriarchal tradition and see one of her three daughters inherit the throne. The Queen would succeed, or die trying. And she was much too ill-natured to pass easily into the Elysian Fields.
Either way, Alexios didn’t give a damn. If he actually became one of the co-ruling kings, he would never have the respect of either the full-blooded Spartans or the helot slave class. Besides that, he wouldn’t have earned the position like he had as leader of his platoon.
Honor—and his mother—were the only things that mattered.
He’d never shared any of that with Kassandra, so she was appeased at his easy agreement. She smiled up at him, turning around when Lydia, another helot slave involved in their baby rescue missions, called out, running toward them on the path.
When Lydia reached them, she leaned down, placing her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. “Where are…Sophia and…the baby? I’ve found a family…for the child.”
Kassandra clapped her hands with a joyful laugh. “Well done, my friend.” She turned back to her son. “Alexi, would you please go find the princess to make sure she’s all right?” She pointed to the general vicinity where he’d last seen Sophia enter the thick grove of olive trees. “The Elders have been leaving babies in that area for a fortnight now. There shouldn’t be many beasts this close to the city, but it’s getting dark, and Sophia’s eyesight is poor.”
Alexios’s hands began to sweat. “I saw her a moment ago. She should be emerging from the olive grove shortly.” He moved to pass by his mother and Lydia, his pulse beginning to strum in his throat at the thought of being caught in conversation with Sophia.
Kassandra grabbed his arm, her voice low. “Alexi, you are a good man. You can be a new future for an inclusive Sparta. Though the road will be hard, don’t fight what your heart knows is right.”
He raised his eyebrows as he looked down at his mother, the bright moonlight bathing her tanned skin a warm white. “Sparta was not built by the heart, but by the sword,” he replied.
“And continuing that tradition is what will be her downfall. Sparta needs both. Because King Davos has accepted you as his heir, you are the only one who can bring unity. You, and the princess. She has the heart of a revolutionary. A good, loving heart, Alexi. You are just too stubborn to see it.”
“I will listen to no more nonsense. Nor am I needed to find the princess. She will be emerging from the trees soon.” He walked away from Kassandra, his face hot, his heart hammering. Stone the crows. This was madness. What could his mother be thinking?
Felix reached his side and walked silently beside him. Alexios offered up a prayer to any god who had a soft spot for bastards that Felix had heard none of his mother’s ridiculous speech.
The heart of a revolutionary, she’d said. A good, loving heart.
Maybe so, mother. But Sophia’s goodness wasn’t meant for him. He would pollute her with his pessimism and the slow-burning anger that never gave him rest. Then he would hate himself more than he already did.
Alexios had almost reached the first house on the outskirts of the city when he looked back. Sophia stood in a circle with Lydia and his mother who were leaning down to peer at the bundle in the princess’s arms.
A dark figure garbed in battle panoply appeared out of nowhere, stepping up behind his mother and placing large hands on her shoulders. Power radiated from the warrior, raising the hairs on the back of Alexios’s neck.
Alexios unsheathed his short sword, leg muscles bunching to lunge toward the three women when Kassandra turned toward the soldier, wrapped her arms around his waist, and laid her head against the leather plates of his chest armor.
Alexios’s open-mouthed bellow died on his lips, his knees locking, his mind blanking out in complete disbelief. Everything quieted. The late evening birdsong, the croaks of the river frogs that echoed off the mountain walls, the hum of insects.
Everything just…quieted.
The warrior was the tallest man Alexios had ever seen, judging by how small Kassandra looked in his arms. Alexios’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword as he stalked toward the women once more, but as suddenly as the warrior appeared, he was gone.
Alexios froze on the moonlit path, blinking again. The evening critters resumed their chatter and Kassandra was fawning over the tiny bundle in Sophia’s arms like the massive warrior hadn’t even been here.
Alexios looked at Felix, who simply stared questioningly at him with a face crusted with blood and dust. Alexios rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. By the gods. He was hallucinating.
Too much sun? He’d never been addled like this from long training hours, but what else could it be? Obviously no one else had seen the man. No one even seemed alarmed that Alexios had drawn his sword and had been approaching the women like he was on a warpath.
Or, had he imagined that, too?
He lowered his arms to his sides and looked down at his baldric to find his sword resting there, sheathed.
He exhaled slowly. Then did it again.
Of all the things he could have dreamed up, why would he imagine a lover for his mother? Was Zeus playing with phantoms to amuse himself at Alexios’s expense? It was the sort of thing the Supreme God of the Olympians might do…all with the intent to make Alexios mistake a loved one for an enemy.
Alexios swallowed back a deep sense of dread.
At that moment, Sophia glanced up from the women’s huddle around the baby to send
him the purest, most radiant smile he’d ever seen.
It was as unsettling as the vision of his mother in the arms of a mysterious and dangerous warrior.
It push-pulled at him so strongly he could do naught but stand and stare.
But then Prince Niketas, Sophia’s brother, emerged from the shrubbery and stepped up to his sister. Snatches of the prince’s audible exasperation with Sophia’s crusading nature merged with the crickets’ song on the evening breeze. Still, the tall, lean prince ruffled his sister’s hair and pulled her into the crook of his shoulder.
She is not, and never shall be, your concern.
Alexios turned without acknowledging the princess’s smile and walked away.
Chapter 4
One year later
“Princess! Sophia!”
Sophia’s hand stilled on a cannabis stem, a shiver shooting along her spine as she lurched to her feet amid the wildflowers and herbs she was collecting for wound poultice.
Medicine that would save her father if the gods had any mercy.
Her father’s groom quickly dismounted from his horse. A slight breeze stirred the hairs that had come loose from her braid as she gauged Herodion’s expression. He’d always been kind, generous, patient. A calm in any storm she’d faced during her nineteen years. He’d often hidden her in the stables when she’d wanted to escape the long hours of physical conditioning even girls were obliged to complete, all to satisfy the Spartan belief that strong females would one day beget strong warriors.
Even more than the exercise, she’d wanted to evade the humiliation of her blundering ways.
Today, strain etched every weathered line on Herodion’s bearded face.
Her pulse thundered at her neck and against her breast, yet her arms dropped limply to her sides, the herbs falling from her fingers as though heavy, clay tablets. “M-my father?”
Herodion nodded stiffly. “I’m sorry, princess. His seizures from the snake bite are getting worse. You’d better come home.”